Google bullish on the future of Google Wallet

Google Wallet launched with more of a whimper than a bang, but the big G has been quietly making some major improvements to their digital wallet solution over the last year, perhaps most significantly the recent addition of being able to add any credit or debit card to Google Wallet. Today Google held a Google Payments Live event to bring updates on Wallet to developers. Wallet’s head of product management Robin Dua shared several insights on why Google is still excited about Wallet, and where they see things heading.

Being a live event for developers, much was made about new API’s they have released in the past months, and while end users may not care about the details of what tools Google provides to developers, we should remember that how easy it is for a developer to implement Google Wallet goes a long ways to determining how many stores and services will adopt it. Along those lines, Dua indicated that they are also rolling out many low-cost cloud-based tools so that companies can make their own solutions (making their own loyalty program, for example), making it more attractive for stores to feature Google Wallet payments.

According to Dua there are now over 200,000 NFC readers in the U.S. that can accept Google Wallet payments, and with the dropping cost of NFC readers and inexpensive tools for vendors to use they think the growth of NFC payments will pick up substantially over the coming year. Google even sees the expanding number of digital wallets as a good thing – aside from the usual platitudes on how competition makes everyone better, they think it will help to speed up the adoption of NFC even more.

There were several “coming soon” and “watch this space” pseudo-announcements. Dua indicated that Google expects to have announcements regarding new international markets in the near future, and they also are working on Paypal-esque payments between Wallet users. And what about Verizon users that can’t get Wallet (without a hack, anyhow) on their LTE Galaxy Nexus? Google is “actively negotiating” to sign up more carrier partners, but apparently no announcements are imminent.

Effectively yes, how do you expect to beat any competition if you offer their customers all the same things as you offer your own (plus their customers get whatever the competition company adds too) so in many respects its a bad call

On the other hand I see where youre coming from, yes, Google is open, which yes is a good thing, and will mean more widespread adoption of certain things like this for example..

I'm just saying why play fair and share EVERYTHING in return for nothing (except the extra traffic I suppose - though Apple favour Yahoo generally)

Im amazed that for person that likes Android you dont have any idea what drove the creation of Android.

The fundamental idea was choice. You no longer had to live with what corporations allowed you to have. The idea was a platform that allowed you to run whatever you wanted on it.

Google works on Macs, PCs, Linux, iOS etc. And that is why people love Google because it doesnt matter what device you use it on. If they did not allow this on iOS they would not be Google, they would be a douch bag company that dictates what you can and cant do.

I'm not asking Google to be like Apple, I'm just looking at it from a competitive marketing prospective.. and yes, obviously android is about being open, and yes that is much better than iOS being a closed ecosystem, and I'm not saying Android should follow suit, obviously not.

What I'm trying to say is, what is the advantage of buying anything Google makes, if (let's say Apple, for arguments sake) can use anything the Google product can + whatever Apple throws into the mix aswell, from a consumer's prospective, you go with the 'Apple' product every time, you'd be stupid not to.

Finally, let's remember that only the properly 'tech-savvy' Android users use the freedom Google allows anyway (rooting) for 90-95% of Android users, the only thing they will take advantage of is changing the background and the homescreens if we're being totally honest, well, here in the UK anyway.

So to conclude, Yes, maybe this wasn't the best example, but like Google's voice search & Now will go onto iOS - surely that's an Android selling-point? That is more as to what I am refferring to..

Erm. My Galaxy Nexus on Verizon downloaded the Wallet from the play store weeks ago. True, mine is rooted, but my co-worker has the Nexus as well, he ISN'T rooted and he's the one who told me it was now available.

That is correct cjo1992. If go to play.google.com on your PC you will see it, but unless the app was preloaded on your version of Android, you wont be able to download it. That is a security measure Google implemented.

People have it on their stock phones. They got it from the play store on their phones. It does not work for everyone, but it works for some. Just because it doesn't work for you, does not mean that people are lying about it working for them.

Yea you are probably right. When I get back to work I am going to send an email to the Samsung Rep that trained us and tell him to stop lying to me. I will also go down the list of 300+ customers that I've relayed that lie to and tell them that a guy at PA was kind enough to enlighten me on whats really going on with Google Wallet. You would think that working for Verizon they would tell us these things...

Wish I could post the confidential CSR protocol guide here to pwn you but its not worth losing my job.

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